Unspeakables II: Science and Magic
by aprilmarie8235
Summary: Updated Tuesdays and Fridays. The Unspeakables are now arrested and the elite exposed, but Thea still has a target on her back. She reunites with an old friend from the past to unravel the science behind how and why the dais was able to reversed and any side effects that may have been caused by its reversal, while Jax investigates other connections in Africa, and George and the tr
1. Chapter 1: Thea

_Cambridge, England._

Thea sat with her legs folded under her, her black pants standing out against the white bedspread on her bed. The room was decorated in simple earth tones-tan bed frame, hardwood floors, brown and white curtains, and tan furniture including a nightstand and dresser. These were all offset by the white bedspread, white lamps, and a white shag carpet under the bed. Grey was mixed in as well, with the addition of grey pillows and blue-grey walls.

She was going over data for the latest tests she had run regarding light. Although she had found a few minor irregularities, everything was looking relatively normal. The lights flickered. Not again.

Thea clicked to save her report and then shut down her laptop, and for good measure, unplugged it, before heading out of her room and down the hall. She pounded on the door to the other bedroom. "Fred!"

After a moment, the door opened, and Thea was treated to the blinding orange walls and curtains, and the ugliest painting she had ever seen over his bed. Tearing her eyes away from the black and white still (the drabbest item in the room apparently), she focused on her roommate. "Please don't use magic. I can't afford to replace another computer. I just can't." She had made the mistake of buying a relatively expensive computer when they had first arrived at Cambridge three months earlier, and within a week, Fred had cast a spell in its vicinity, blowing it up.

Thea had replaced that laptop with a much cheaper Chromebook, which had lasted a few weeks before Fred had accidentally blown that one up. He had just blown the latest one up yesterday, forcing her to replace it yet again.

"Well, then what am I supposed to do?" Fred was pacing around the room like some sort of wild cat-a tiger or perhaps a lion-in a cage. "You may be accustomed to living like a muggle," he said turning to face her, "but I'm not. What did you bring me back for if you weren't even going to let me use magic?"

Muggles were non-magical humans, and at times like these, Fred reminded Thea of a petulant child. She sighed as her phone buzzed in her pocket. She checked it, before turning back to Fred. "Look, I have to go. Ben has something for me, but we'll go out tonight...to one of the college parties here. It's still no magic, but it will be something to do. Just...watch some television or something while I'm gone."

"But there's nothing good on to watch," Fred whined, and Thea had to force herself not to roll her eyes.

"It's only for a few hours. Then I'll be back, and we'll go out," she promised. Thea hurried out before there was further argument and walked the short distance to the science building on campus.

The building had a modern feel-using steel furnishings rather than brick or wood. She knew the inside to be just as advanced as the outside. She made her way down a full hallway to the physics lab. The lab itself was a hodge-podge of equipment and looked a lot more disorderly than it really was. Computers, complex pulleys and other equipment filled the large space making it seem smaller.

Hunched over one of the computers was Dr Benjamin Cooper. His stooped figure tapped the keys of the computer as his brown hair fell into his eyes. He brushed it aside absent-mindedly as he focused intently on the data in front of him.

It was clear he hadn't noticed Thea come in.

Thea cleared her throat.

Ben started, blinking for a moment to focus on Thea. "Oh, Thea. I didn't hear you come in."

"I know," said Thea, stepping forward. "You seemed pretty engrossed in what you were doing."

"I was just going through some data from the atomic reactor," Ben told her apologetically, before straightening his glasses.

Thea waited patiently.

"Oh, I got in touch with my friend, Dr Graham." His cheeks went pink as he said it. "She said she would be happy to take the blood samples you need and to help analyze them."

"That's great," said Thea. "I appreciate it. It will probably take a few days for me to get everything set up. How soon would she be available?"

"She can work with you," said Ben. "Just let me know when you're ready, and I'll let her know."

Thea nodded. "You could have just told me this over the phone, you know."

Ben's cheeks turned pink. "Yes, well, um...I had just wanted to ask for your advice on something."

Thea pretended to look at some of the equipment so he wouldn't see the expression on her face. She knew what he was going to ask-advantage-or drawback in some cases-of being able to read minds.

"Well, Ophelia, Dr Graham that is, she asked me to move in with her."

"Oh?" Thea asked, trying to keep her tone neutral.

Ben shoved his hands in his pockets. "Well, it's just that we haven't been dating all that long..."

"You've been dating for nearly a year," Thea reminded him. "I remember because you wrote me last year about how nervous you were about asking her out in the first place."

Thea waited for Ben to respond to that, but he just stood there awkwardly. Thea sighed. "Look, either you love her or you don't. She's making it clear to you that she wants a commitment, and if you're not ready to make a commitment to her, then you should let her go. But if you're just scared...if you know you love her, and you want to get closer to her, start heading toward marriage, then face your fears and say yes, because at some point, you're probably going to need to move forward. Women rarely will wait forever, even if they're with the right guy."

Ben was quiet for a long moment. "I do love her."

"Then it should be an easy decision-it's just getting through the fear-that's the hard part." And boy was it the hard part. While Thea wasn't in exactly the same situation as Ben was, even taking the first steps towards a relationship with someone when you had been hurt before was hard.

"And how are things with you and George?"

And there was the elephant in the room so to speak. After Liam and the other Unspeakables had been arrested, they had vowed to get to know one another better, see if they wanted to develop a relationship, but it was hard to do that when he was in London, and she was in Cambridge. She turned to face Ben. "I don't know that there is a George and me, to be honest. With the way we left things...long-distance relationships are tough," she settled on.

"Do you love him?" Ben asked, clearly not as nervous to talk about her love life as he was about his own.

Thea shook her head. "I'm still getting to know him."

"By letters?"

"He doesn't have a personal email address," she reminded him. Of course, George didn't have any email addresses since anything magical made computers-and all other electronics-go haywire, but Ben didn't know that. Ben couldn't know that, because if she told a muggle about magic, she would be violating wizarding law. "He's not big on modern technology on a personal level, and I don't want to bother him at work, so letters it is."

Ben just shook his head. "You should invite him up here to visit. I'd like to meet him."

"You'll get to," said Thea. "He's my control subject for the DNA experiment."

"Isn't that a bit unprofessional mixing work with pleasure?" Ben teased her. She could see the twinkle in his eye because he thought it was amusing.

"You have no idea," Thea told him. He really didn't. It didn't get much more personal than dating the brother of the man you managed to bring back from the dead. But again, it's not as if Thea could explain any of that to Ben.

Before Ben could think of another question to ask-or a further way to tease Thea, students began to trickle into the laboratory. "I should get going," Thea told him. "I know you've got a class." Ben waved her off, and Thea headed back to Fred, hoping that he hadn't blown up the house in the time that she had been gone.


	2. Chapter 2: George

George sank down onto the couch. It wasn't that he wasn't happy for his sister and Harry-he was, he just found it hard to be happy at all with the way the circumstances had worked out. He had gone from grieving his brother's death, to finding solace in a friendship-maybe more? Hopefully more, with Thea, to having his brother back, to ultimately losing them both all over again.

Oh, they were still out there-and he knew where they were, but the fact was that they were together trying to work out what damage bringing Fred back in the first place had caused to the universe, if any, and he was here, back in London.

They still sent owls back and forth, but it just wasn't the same. For one thing, he had pictured Thea being his date for his sister's engagement party at the Burrow. This wasn't at all what he had pictured when he had talked about getting to know Thea better after the mess with the Unspeakables was over.

"Oi! Cheer up!" said Ron, sitting down on the couch beside George.

"Leave me alone, Ron."

"Leave you alone?" said Ron. "Yeah, I will. In a minute. Because I get you being upset and moping because Thea is off with Fred doing her science thing..."

"No, that's just it-you don't get it," said George, shaking his head. "You've got your best friend...your girlfriend-they're both here. My best friend died. He died, and then the girl I was interested in seeing, she brought him back, just so the two of them could go off together."

"But that's not..." Ron stuttered. "You don't think that's why...that they're interested in each other?"

"Why wouldn't they be?" said George. "Fred is a lot like me-just happier."

Ron opened his mouth to reply, then closed it.

"Let me handle this." Ginny had come over, elbowing Ron to get up and let her take his seat. Ron didn't hesitate.

"And what wisdom do you have to offer?" George asked, his voice bitter.

"Nothing that you don't already know." Ginny gave him a shove. "You're an idiot."

"Hey, what?"

"You're an idiot," Ginny repeated. "You're sitting here moping, even though our brother-your twin and best friend is alive. And Thea brought him back _for you_. How can you not see that? She could have chosen anyone to bring back, and she chose Fred. She didn't even know him-but she knew you. Do you really think she would have gone through all of that to bring him back for you and then end up dating him when she knows you're waiting for her here in London?"

"I didn't say she would've planned it," George muttered defensively.

"You act like Thea's this happy-go-lucky girl, who wants sunshine and rainbows and can't handle any darkness, but I don't think that's true," said Ginny. "I don't think you're giving her enough credit. She wouldn't be interested in Fred-she's too serious-and she has her own darkness-she's experienced loss, too. Did you ever think that maybe the reason the two of you connected was because of everything that you've both lost? You may have bonded over secret passages, but I think it was your serious and brooding side that helped the two of you relate, and that's where you and Fred differ."

"If you're saying that my brooding is so great, then why are you giving me a hard time about it?" George pointed out. He was being difficult, and he knew it, but he was having a hard time caring about that.

Ginny sighed. "I'm saying that maybe you should go visit them-talk to her in person instead of just in letters."

George considered that, perking up a bit. It would be nice to go see them, and she had mentioned the possibility before she had left. But then he deflated. "What if she doesn't want me there?"

Ginny shrugged. "Only one way to find out." She paused for a second. "Oh, and it might be nice if you congratulated me-I am getting married after all." And she showed off the ring.

George gave a small laugh. "Congratulations." And he gave her a hug. "And thanks."


	3. Chapter 3: Jax

The cave was cool and damp, and there was a trickling of water somewhere deeper in the cave. The drip, drip, dripping of the droplets was like music to Jax's ears-just like the bubbling of the small stream deeper in, but it was secondary right now. "Is it almost loose?"

"Not quite." The dark-haired woman in front of him was manoeuvring a small tool into the wall of the cave. "But nearly," she said. "Tilt the light a little this way." She motioned with her free hand.

Jax did as she asked, glancing over his shoulder at the bones that littered the cave floor. Sometimes they found natural gems buried within the earth. Other times, like in this case, they found treasures from previous societies.

"There we go," the woman said as she popped a small jewel out of the cave wall.

"Amazing," said Jax. "It's in perfect condition." They dropped it into a small pouch designated for jewels. "Do you see any more?"

"Not in this section of wall," the woman told him.

Jax nodded. "I suppose we'll have to keep looking. Valentina?" he asked.

The dark-haired woman turned to look back at him.

"Did you ever think that when we met in passing years ago that we would ever go on an expedition together?" Jax had begun collecting up their tools.

Valentina shook her head. "No, I can honestly say that I didn't."

They spent several more hours in the cave but found nothing more. It had gotten dark, so they began heading out, making the long trek toward the marketplace in Addis Ababa. "So you said before that you have a friend who knows all the Ancient Runes..."

"Yeah..." said Jax warily as they walked. This wasn't the first time Valentina had brought it up. "Just in case you've forgotten, I'm pretty good with runes myself."

"No, I hadn't forgotten," said Valentina. "I just...I had found something on my last trip, and I could use some help translating it."

"When we get back, I can take a look at it if you'd like," Jax offered. And really, it was the option that made the most sense, considering that translating runes was one of the few things he did better than Thea did.

"Um, sure," said Valentina. "I left it in London, but when we're both there," she said, and it was clear that even she knew how lame the excuse was.

Jax stopped and turned to face her. They were almost at the marketplace, and Jax had a feeling as to who was waiting for them there. "Which one of them got to you?"

Valentina blinked at him as if in surprise that he had figured it out or as if she didn't know what he was talking about, but Jax knew that neither was true. "What?" Valentina asked. "What are you talking about?"

"So you're telling me that there isn't at least one member of the Elite waiting for us back at the marketplace?" Jax asked her. Really, she was a very bad liar, and normally, he would have betted coercion, but she was clearly faking a lot of her reactions.

Valentina sighed. "Alex Shafiq...he has my father."

Jax glanced over at the marketplace, but they were still too far out to make out individual people. He grabbed her arm. "Come on." Then he disapparated.

They reappeared in an alleyway. "Wait here," he told her and made his way around the front of the hotel. Shafiq and two others were waiting in the lobby, so Jax made his way around the back. Good. There was no one. He headed back to the alley. "Shafiq and his men are waiting in the lobby. We'll have to go around the back."

Valentina looked appropriately afraid as they made their way around the hotel, but Jax couldn't help the nagging feeling that she was putting on an act. But why let him find out that she was working with them if she hadn't been coerced?

They made it up to his room, and Jax used the muggle key to let them in, closing and bolting the door behind them. Then Jax held out his wand, pointing it at the door and muttered the spell to magically lock the door as well. "Protego totalum, salvio hexia, muffliato, cave inimicum." And then he cast a few more just for good measure.

"Really? An anti-disapparition jinx?" Valentina asked him. "You think I'm going to leave and go to them?"

Jax shrugged. "I have no idea what you're going to do. Honestly, I have no idea if what you've even told me is the truth."

Valentina shook her head. "Why would I lie?"

"I have no idea," said Jax. "But you are lying about something-I just haven't figured out what yet. The only thing I can think of is that they're hoping you can earn my trust and get Thea's location out of me, but even if I help you get your father back, I still won't tell you where she is."

"I'm not working for them."

Jax just watched her for a moment. That rang true, but she was definitely lying about something. He sighed. "Here's what we're going to do. We're going to get cleaned up-and you will stay here tonight. I'll sleep on the couch. In the morning, we'll get your father, and we'll get the hell out of dodge."

Valentina put her hands on her hips and stared him down. "And if I say no?"

"You won't say no," said Jax with a shrug, moving to make some tea. "You're mad that I'm telling you what to do, but you wanted me in this-now I'm in this. Am I wrong?"

Valentina sighed. "You still haven't figured out all of my secrets yet, you know."

"Oh, I know." Jax handed her a cup with some tea. "Do you want the shower first or to relax a bit with your tea?"

Valentina set the tea aside. "Can't you read my mind?"

Jax sighed. It was most definitely meant as a come on, but despite the fact that she was attractive, she was also lying to him, and that was a line in the sand for him. "I'll get cleaned up first," he said with a sigh. "Enjoy your tea." And he disappeared into the bathroom.


	4. Chapter 4: Thea

Thea braced herself for what she was going to see when she went into the apartment. She swung the door open to find...the place was immaculate. Immediately she was suspicious. "Fred!" she called out, closing the door behind her and setting her things on the table.

Fred came out of the kitchen. "Is everything okay?" he asked her.

"I don't know." Thea eyed him suspiciously. "You tell me."

"Oh," Fred said sheepishly, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I thought about what you said-or rather what you didn't say. Anyone else would have chewed me out for destroying their things like that-even if it was an accident. I just...I don't know where I fit in here...now that I'm back. It's made all the harder that I'm stuck out here in the muggle world, with someone I don't know all that well, even if you did literally bring me back from the dead-which I never really thanked you for by the way."

Thea shook her head. "But I didn't..."

Fred held out a hand to stop her. "I know. You've told me, but forgive me if I don't completely believe you. See, you and I had never met before you had even brought me back, and it's not as if you rolled a die to see who would come back. You specifically arranged for it to be me, and I think it's because of my brother."

Thea opened her mouth to speak again, but Fred just waved her off. "Whatever the reason was, I'm grateful, I really am, and I don't feel like I've been showing it."

Wa Wa Wa! Wa Wa Wa!

Fred covered his ears at the loud shrieking noise coming from the kitchen. "What the bloody hell is that?"

Thea ignored him and ran into the kitchen, waving away the smoke, following it to the oven, which she opened to find a burned pizza in there. She turned off the oven and with a wave of her wand, opened the window.

"Oh, so you get to use magic while I can't?" Fred pointed out, his expression almost mutinous.

Thea sighed. "My computer's in the other room, and the other electronics are unplugged. But yes, I see your point. Can I ask why you were trying to make pizza though? I told you that we could go out." She had thought that he wanted to see something other than these four walls.

Fred looked down, looking slightly abashed. "I realized that you're the one who does mostly everything around here, and I wanted to help out. I thought pizza would be something simple enough to make, even the muggle way. I guess I was wrong."

Thea touched a gentle hand to Fred's arm and gave him a small smile. "It's the effort that counts. I need to send a quick owl, and then we can head out." Thea found paper and some pens in a drawer and began writing the letter. While she used a quill and parchment for most writing within the wizarding world, she preferred muggle pens and paper whenever it was possible. She began writing.

"Tell my brother I say hi," said Fred, a little amused.

Thea looked over at Fred, frowning. "How did you know that I was writing to George?"

Fred grinned. "The look on your face. You get this sappy look on your face whenever you write to him."

"I do not."

"You most certainly do," Fred assured her.

Thea just shook her head and finished the letter before going into the other room retrieve her owl. It only took a moment, for her to send it off, and she was returning to Fred. "Ready to go?"


	5. Chapter 5: George

The party had finished hours ago, but George couldn't sleep. He sat on the couch where he had mostly stayed during the party, trying to figure out what he should say in his owl to Thea. How did you address concerns that the girl you are interested in might find your brother to be more suitable? And how do you invite yourself out to visit?

He had started to write several versions, and none of them had seemed exactly right. Now he was just sitting, staring at the fire when his mother came in.

She took one look at all the crumpled bits of parchment on the floor and sighed, coming to sit beside George on the couch. "What's her name?" she asked softly.

George looked over her, startled. "What?"

His mother offered him a wan smile. "Do you really think I can't tell when you've got a girl on your mind? Fred was always easier to read in that regard, but a mother always knows," she said, patting him on the arm.

George sighed. "Thea. Her name's Thea. She's off at the University of Cambridge at the moment studying physics." At his mother's confused look, he sighed. "She's a muggle-born witch. It's a long story, but she needs to be there, and I need to be here. I don't even know if we have anything-all we had discussed was wanting to find out." It was strange to be talking to his mother about this. What was even more strange was that he couldn't tell her that Fred was with Thea at Cambridge. They had decided it best not to tell anyone out of their small circle that Fred was alive-at least not until Thea had figured out what side effects, if any, there were from having brought him back.

"And you're trying to send her an owl?" His mother was astute enough to guess. "Well," she said softly, "I've always found that in these instances, something simple and from the heart is best." She patted his arm again and got up to head upstairs to go back to bed. Before she had left the room, however, George called out to her.

"Mum? Thanks."

George took a breath and started again.

Thea,

When we had decided to get to know each other better after everything was over with the Unspeakables, I had wanted to get to know you in person-and I'd still like to. I was wondering how you would feel about me coming to visit you where you are? I have a vested interest in what you're studying...and to be honest, I miss your company.

I look forward to your reply,

George

He was just finishing his letter when an owl flew in through the open window. He recognized Thea's pygmy owl Oreo right away, and he grinned, pulling the letter off of her leg, opening it while the little owl waited.

George,

I know it has been some time since my last letter, and I am sorry for that. The truth is that I don't always know what to say. We're in a bit of an awkward situation, and I'm afraid that that's my fault, but there is nothing to be done about it-I have to be sure I didn't damage the universe with what I did, and I have to stay off the radar to do it-and you have to stay on the radar. If you were to disappear, people would be suspicious, even if I wish this wasn't the case. It would have been nice to have had your company, at least off and on during these last months. I can't really be myself around the people here, and my roommate...let's just say he has a tendency to get on my nerves, though I don't think he intends to. He actually cleaned the apartment when I was out in an effort to try to help, but then of course nearly set it on fire. He says hi by the way and is teasing me about the sappy look I apparently get when I am writing to you.

But anyway, I actually did have a reason for writing. How would you feel about coming out here for a few days? I need a little help with something, help that only you can provide. I can't get into details in this letter for obvious reasons, but I will explain when you get here.

Looking forward to seeing you,

Thea

George grinned. It seemed they were thinking along similar lines. Quickly, he scribbled a few extra lines onto his letter.

P.S. Just got your letter-after I wrote my own. I would love to come out and would be happy to help with whatever it is. I look forward to seeing you, too!

And then he fastened the letter to Oreo's leg, and she took off out the window, heading for Cambridge.


	6. Chapter 6: Jax

Jax and Valentina were up very early the next morning and headed for the hospital. They were able to get inside without incident, but when they got up to the department where Valentina's father was being treated, they spotted two men watching over him.

"They work for Shafiq," Valentina whispered to Jax.

Jax nodded, pulling her back around the corner. He sighed. He had half expected this but had hoped that he was wrong. "You're going to have to tell them where Thea is," he said, resigned. Of course, he wasn't actually going to tell her where Thea was, but she didn't need to know that.

"You're going to tell me where she is, so I can send them after her?" Valentina asked, confused.

"She's in Bath," he told her.

Valentina narrowed her eyes at him. "She's really not in Bath, is she?"

"No," he admitted. "But you had no problem lying to me for the last two months, why should you have a problem with lying to them?"

Valentina shook her head. "That's different. It's not as if you were going to kill me if you caught me in the lie!" she hissed out a whisper.

"I still may yet," Jax told her. In truth, he was a little amused at her discomfort, feeling that she at least owed him that much.

Valentina rolled her eyes at him, but she headed over to the men and began talking to them.

Jax edged closer to try to listen. He was only able to catch snippets of the conversation-Valentina was a good liar as it turned out. Why she had done such a lousy job of it with him was somewhat of a mystery though.

But only one was leaving. That meant that they were checking Valentina's story, making sure that Thea really was in Bath, which of course she wasn't, meaning that once they found that out, there was going to be trouble. They had to get Valentina's father out of there now. Jax began moving quickly, closing the space between him and the remaining guard. "Confundus," he said, pointing his wand at the man. "Come on," he said, grabbing Valentina's hand and pulling her into the room.

"If you were just going to confund them, why did I have to put on this whole charade?" Valentina demanded. "Was it just for your amusement?"

"Well, it was amusing," said Jax, earning him a swift hit to his arm. "Ow! If you would let me finish...I had hoped that they would both leave after you had given them the information, but even with just one gone, it lowered the risk that they would get the jump on us before we were able to confund them. Now maybe we should get your father out of here before the spell wears off?"

"Right." Valentina moved over to her father's bedside and began to rouse him. This was the easy part. Getting him out of there without anyone being the wiser would be difficult.

As planned, Jax put pillows in the bed-this was to buy them a few minutes. He knew that as soon as someone came to check on him, they would find him missing. While he did this, Valentina disillusioned the old man, and then they started out.

They had nearly made it when "They're getting away!"

"Go!" Jax sent Valentina and her father ahead of him as he turned to hold off the two men-the first had returned, and the second was no longer confunded. Jax sent a few curses over his shoulder before following after them.


	7. Chapter 7: Thea

Thea pushed back a strand of hair from her face as she focused on the information in front of her. Pieces were coming together, but slowly. While she had understood the basics of how someone might be brought back to life, she hadn't had a chance to go through all of the consequences-effects on the universe...as well as the effects on Fred himself.

Magically, it had been a matter of creating a spell that merely took science into account-meaning that a basic knowledge was enough. Now, she had to figure out the specifics. Einstein's spooky action and *entanglement would help to explain what had happened, but not the side effects, not when scientists were only just starting to understand what entanglement was.

Thea looked up from her research when she heard a flapping sound and spotted Oreo flying in from an open window. She groaned. This was a large part of why she had been writing to George less. Oreo would show up at the least opportune times. Being in the muggle world, it was hard to explain how letters would show up or why an owl would fly into the science building at random times. "Oh, Oreo," she said softly, removing the letter from the small bird's ankle. "Go home," she told her, sending her flying out the window, just as Ben came back into the lab.

He blinked, looking from her to the owl and back again. "How do those owls keep getting in here? It's awfully strange behaviour for an owl."

"It is," said Thea, hastily stowing the letter in her pocket. She could feel Ben's eyes on her, but she didn't know what to tell him. It wasn't as if she could tell him that she was a witch with magical powers and that the owl was her pet who delivered her mail from the wizarding world. He would think she was crazy-and she would be in a lot of trouble for potentially exposing wizardkind.

"And it's very weird that they only seem to show up when you're here," Ben pointed out.

"Oh?" Thea met his gaze, keeping her expression neutral.

"I just think it's strange," said Ben, turning back to his own equipment and research.

Thea had to wait until Ben left again to look at George's letter. She couldn't help what she was sure was the sappy grin that Fred had referred to when she did. He had gotten her letter, and he was coming.

*Quantum entanglement basically occurs when atoms are split-the two parts of the atom, though separate, mirror each other in their actions. She's referring here to a connection between soul and body. What she did magically was the reverse of what happens in entanglement-she brought the two back together. Hopefully, that makes sense. As she is not explaining it to another person, I couldn't simplify her thoughts any further than what I did. Keep in mind, this is a very simplified explanation of a complex topic, but hopefully, it makes sense enough for the reader to follow her train of thought.


	8. Chapter 8: George

George headed to the lab-it wasn't as if Thea could give him the address to where she and Fred were actually staying, so he had to settle for where he knew she was working.

The building was made of steel, which made it look cold and uncomfortable to George, but they had said at the front building that this was the physics building-and where he could find Thea.

Everything was black and white inside, having a sort of clinical feel to it-and Thea wasn't anywhere to be found. There was just a man, leaning over what George assumed was a computer. Thea had mentioned them to him, but he had never actually seen one for himself.

The man started when he noticed he wasn't alone. "Oh, you scared me." He came around the table to offer George his hand to shake, his eyes briefly falling on the bandage George had put over the hole where his ear had been (as had the lady's eyes in the office when he had spoken to her), but the man didn't comment on it. "I'm Dr Benjamin Cooper, and you must be George. Thea told me to look out for you. She should be here with Fred any minute."

As if his words had summoned her, footsteps and Thea's voice could be heard from out in the hall. "Well, I didn't make you drink that much. In fact, I told you that it wasn't like what you were used to..." She trailed off as they stepped into the lab, and her eyes fell on George. "George, hi."

"Hi," he said, taking in her appearance. Her hair was lighter and a little longer than it had been the last he had seen her, and the curls were sleeker and less of a disarray. She was also dressed in dress slacks and a blouse instead of the jeans or robe he was used to seeing her in. He almost felt underdressed beside her. "It's good to see you," he said finally.

Thea smiled, and it lit up her whole face. "It's good to see you, too."

"And what am I? Chopped liver?" Fred interjected.

George turned his gaze from Thea to Fred and grinned. "It's good to see you, too. You look terrible." And he did. Fred's skin was pale and his eyes bloodshot. He looked as if he had drunk too much firewhiskey, but that was impossible as they wouldn't have had any of that there.

Fred shook his head. "She dragged me to a party last night."

Thea raised an eyebrow. "Dragged you? I offered to take you out, so you could be around people other than me and have something to do since you had been whining about how bored you were. I warned you before we went that the alcohol would be stronger than you were used to, and do you remember what you said? You said it was nothing, and every time someone put a glass in your hand, you drank until I dragged you back out of there."

"Maybe you should have listened to her warning," George remarked, a little amused.

"Yeah, sure, take her side," Fred mumbled.

George was about to reply with a joke, but Thea wasn't paying attention to them anymore. She had turned to Dr Cooper, who was watching them suspiciously. "I thought your friend was going to be here," she said softly. "We can't really get started without her."

Dr Cooper blinked, and his cheeks flushed. "Oh, um, she is. She's just running a little late."

"In that case, Thea, can I have a word with you out in the hall?" George asked.

"Oh, um, sure." She gave Fred a warning glance that George took to mean that she didn't want him to say anything that would make Dr. Cooper more suspicious than he already was. Fred rolled his eyes at her as Thea followed George out into the hall. "What do you..."

But she didn't have a chance to finish as George leaned in to kiss her. "I've been waiting for three months to do that," he told her. "Couldn't you read my mind to know that's what I was going to do?"

"Well, I can read it now," said Thea. "I was just focused on..."

"On Dr. Cooper and the fact that he's suspicious," said George. "I noticed."

She raised an eyebrow. "Who's reading whose mind now?"

"I'd like to think I'm getting to know you," he said softly, tucking a strand of her now blonde hair behind her ear. "Plus, Dr. Cooper was pretty obvious. Is that why you stopped writing?"

Thea winced. "Yeah. Oreo has a tendency to show up here at the lab-not to mention that Fred isn't very good at playing muggle."

"I'll just have to tell her to deliver my letters to Fred then for you," George told her.

"Great. Just what I want-to intercept love letters between the two of you," Fred grumbled. "Ben told me to tell you that the other doctor is on her way-she just arrived on campus."

Thea nodded, turning to go inside. Fred turned to go after her, but George grabbed his arm. "What's with you?" he asked.

Fred just shook his head.

"Are you and Thea not getting along?" George asked, concerned. Fred wasn't just his brother, he was his best friend, and he really liked Thea. If Fred and Thea ended up not getting on, it would cause some problems.

Fred shook his head. "Thea's great-most of the time, though she can be a bit annoying. I didn't take her seriously last night, and now..."

"And now you're hungover," George said, a little amused, though he was concerned about Fred's comment about Thea being annoying.

"I'm supposed to be making a good impression, and this is just one more thing in a long list of screw-ups," Fred continued.

"She said you nearly caught the apartment on fire," said George. "How did you manage that?"

"I was trying to cook-the muggle way," said Fred. "I sort of blew up her computer when I tried to use magic, so I was trying to do something nice to make up for it, and..." He shrugged, though it was clear he was bothered by it.

"She didn't really seem to be mad about it if that helps," George told him. "I think she just gets frustrated because she knows that you feel out of place out here." George was guessing to some degree, but he knew his brother, and as he had said before, he wanted to think he was getting to know Thea as well.

"I am out of place here," Fred said simply. "It all just comes naturally for her, but it's hard pretending to be a muggle."

"She's muggle-born," George said quietly. "So she grew up in this world-plus, apparently she told Harry before that she spent most of the second wizarding world in the muggle world. She's had plenty of time to adjust."

"Well, I don't feel so bad then," said Fred. "Maybe we should go in?" He gave George a nudge and nodded toward a petite blonde who was approaching them.

"Uh, yeah." And the two brothers headed into the lab.


	9. Chapter 9: Thea

"So are you planning to fill me in on what's going on?" Ben asked when Thea came back into the lab. "First the owls...your odd roommate who you seem to keep under wraps, and now this George with a bandage on the side of his face...what are you actually working on, Thea?"

Thea took a breath. "I can't tell you."

"What? Do you work for the CIA or something?" he blurted out.

"Or something," said Thea as the others came in.

"Well, I guess we can get started," said Ben, though his eyes lingered on Thea for a second, letting her know that he wouldn't be dropping his questions. "Everyone, this is Dr. Ophelia Graham, Thea Walker, and Fred and George Weasley," he said, pointing them all out in turn.

"It's nice to meet you all," said Dr. Graham. "Let me just get my kit out."

While she did that, Thea pulled George aside. "Sorry, I never actually had a chance to tell you what I needed from you. I want to see if what happened had any effect on his DNA, and you're the closest to a control sample I can get, being his twin."

"You want my blood," he said. "There are so many jokes I can make out of that."

Thea rolled her eyes, but she was grinning, almost laughing. "Shut up," she told him.

George laughed, feeling at ease with her. "You can have my blood, but I want something in exchange."

She blinked at him, not really sure where this was going.

"Have dinner with me," he told her.

She laughed. "That's all you want? You could have had that for free, and now you've wasted your favour."

"Oh, I'll think of something," he whispered in her ear.

"If the two of you are done flirting," said Fred, teasing them, "I'm finished, so it's your turn," he told George.

"All right, all right," said George, and he let the doctor stick a needle in his arm.

"Now, I'm just doing a DNA analysis on these, correct?" Dr. Graham asked.

Thea nodded. "Yes."

"Anything in particular you want me to look out for?"

"No," Thea told her. "A general analysis should be fine."

"If I know what you're looking for, it would help me to be able to find it," the doctor pushed gently.

Thea sighed. "That's usually helpful, but I don't know exactly what I'm looking for. I'm not sure I'll know before I find it."

Dr. Graham nodded at that. "All right. I'll get this ready for you as soon as I can."

"Thank you," Thea told her. "I'll see you tomorrow," she told Ben, before heading out with George and Fred.


	10. Chapter 10: Jax

He had lost Valentina. Well, more likely was that she had ditched him, and he should have known. She had lied to him before, why not now? He started the long trek back to his hotel room, but before he had made very much progress, he was grabbed roughly from behind, and his wand was pulled out of his hand.

"Where are they?" came a gruff voice. Not Shafiq. Must have been one of the thugs with him.

"Well, if you're referring to Valentina and her father," said Jax, "I haven't the foggiest. She seems to have double-crossed me now that she got what she wanted."

"What about Thea Walker? Do you know where she is?" Came the smooth, cool voice that Jax had come to know belonged to Alex Shafiq.

"Nope. Not a clue." Jax just hoped that this Shafiq character wasn't a legilimens like his boss, otherwise, he was screwed, and so was Thea.

"We'll see about that," came the gruff voice.

"We need to take him to Walsh." This was from Shafiq.

"You're lucky," said the gruff voice, but Jax didn't feel lucky. Before he could protest, they had disapparated with him.

They reappeared in Cairo and led Jax to what could only be described as a mansion, and inside waiting for them was Orrin Walsh.


	11. Chapter 11: Thea

They went out to lunch after that. Though Thea was happy to finally be spending some time with George, she was quiet throughout lunch, anxious about what Dr. Graham may have found. Both George and Fred tried to engage her in conversation and to cheer her up, distract her from her worry, but she still couldn't focus. Then her phone rang.

"I have to take this," she told George and Fred and stepped outside to answer her phone. "Hello?"

"Thea? It's Ophelia Graham. I have the results of the DNA tests you wanted me to do."

Thea took a breath. "What did you find?"

"It was mostly typical DNA results for siblings. I do have to say though that their DNA was very similar for them being four years apart."

Thea froze. "Four years apart?" George was the same age as she was and would be turning 23 in a matter of months. Fred's birthday was the same day, but he had lost two years between the Battle of Hogwarts and when Thea had brought him back a few months ago.

"Yes," said Ophelia. "DNA ageing puts George at about 22 or 23, and Fred at about 18 or 19. Is that not correct?"

For a moment, Thea couldn't speak. She sank down onto a low wall set aside for a garden outside the restaurant. "No, but I think you found what I was looking for. Thank you," she said a little mechanically, before hanging up the phone.

Thea didn't know how long she sat there before Fred came out to join her, sitting down beside her.

"George wanted to come out, but I thought it should be me," he said quietly. "The doctor found something, didn't she? Bringing me back, it did something to my DNA."

Thea took a long time to answer him. Finally, she spoke up. "She said that you were younger than you were supposed to be."

"Well, yeah, I was dead for two years-we had expected that," said Fred, but Thea was shaking her head.

"She said that according to your DNA, you were 18 or 19-when it should have been 20 or 21," Thea explained.

Fred shook his head. "So, maybe I've got good genes?"

"George's DNA has him at 22 or 23," Thea said simply.

Fred waited for her to elaborate, but when she didn't, he spoke up. "Listen, I don't know anything about physics, so maybe you could tell me what that means?"

Thea sighed, a little reluctant to tell him, but he deserved to know. "One of the theorized signs of having poked a hole in the space-time continuum is the paradoxical reversal of time," she said softly.

Fred shook his head. "What?"

"Bring you back may very well have broken the world," Thea said softly. "We have to go back to where it happened-to where you came back, and we have to go now."

Fred nodded slowly. "I'll get George, but can we not tell him-or at least try to minimize the problem? He took it hard enough when I died-if I have to go back, I don't want to make it worse for him."

"Neither do I," Thea said softly.

Fred put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it softly, before getting up to go inside to retrieve his brother.


	12. Chapter 12: Jax

Jax supposed he should consider himself lucky. Although he had tried to block Orrin's spell to read his mind, he wasn't nearly as good an occlumens as Thea was, so it hadn't taken much for Orrin to get the location from him, which left him spared from most of the torture Thea had gone through a few months earlier.

Even so, he had been tied to a chair and had taken a few hits. He was currently sitting in the dark trying to get his hands out of the ropes that were tying him to the chair. Then the lights came on.

Jax froze expecting to see Shafiq or one of the other thugs had returned, but heading towards him was Valentina. "You have got to be kidding me."

Valentina rolled her eyes. "Would you rather I leave you here?" She waved her wand and the ropes fell to the ground.

Jax rubbed his sore wrists before taking the wand that Valentina offered him, his own, the one that Shafiq and his thugs had taken. "Give me one good reason I shouldn't curse you and leave you tied up here after what you did."

"I needed to make sure my father was safe," Valentina told him.

"Right, and you just came after me as an afterthought, and Shafiq and his goons just happened to not be here?" He wasn't buying it. Valentina had been playing both sides from the beginning-why would that change now?

"What? You want me to leave you here?"

Jax sighed. "Let's go." And he followed her out.

"So where are we going?" she asked.

"We? What we?" Jax headed for a hotel in Egypt, used the imperious curse to get a reservation and started heading for the stairs.

"So what? You're not going to help your friend?"

Jax turned to face her, had to restrain himself from grabbing her and shaking her. "Why would you even care?"

"Because I feel responsible."

"Yeah, right." Jax made it to the end of the hallway and inserted his key. Valentina followed him in, and he just shrugged, closing the door behind them. It made no difference whether Valentina was there or not. Jax grabbed the pad of paper from the dresser along with a pen and began writing.

"What are you doing?"

Jax ignored her and finished writing, folded the paper in half and wrote Thea Walker on the outside, before levitating the letter and nonverbally casting the spell that would apparate the note to Thea. Once the paper had vanished, he turned to Valentina. "I don't need to go to her to help her-and I'm not going to her-not with you in tow."

Valentina shook her head. "I'm not working for Shafiq!"

"I don't believe you," Jax said with a shrug.

"What can I do to make you trust me?" Valentina asked, but Jax merely shook his head. The damage was already done.


	13. Chapter 13: George

George had been reluctant to go back. Honestly, he didn't understand why Thea wanted to go back, back to the place where she had been tortured three months earlier...but she was insistent on needing to go back, insistent that the three of them go back together, and she didn't explain.

They headed away from the restaurant and down an alley before disapparating away. They reappeared down the street from the Elite's old headquarters. "Are you sure about this?" George asked Thea.

"Positive," she told him. Even Fred was quiet as the trio made their way down the street and into the house.

"Why is it so important to be here?" George tried again.

"If I'm right," said Thea, "and I'm pretty sure I am, then it will be obvious." And she led them inside and toward the basement.

The house was dusty from no one being there and singed as a result of Thea having blown up the dais. She led them straight down the stairs and into the basement, and then George knew exactly what her urgency had been. Standing in the corner, pristine as ever, was the dais.

For a moment, George could only stare at it, but then he turned to look at Thea and his brother. Thea's expression was unsurprised but grim, and his brother, though some surprise was clearly on his face, he wore a similar grim expression, which meant that he was the only one completely in the dark about what was going on. He grabbed Thea's arm and pulled her off to the side. "What's going on?" He asked her.

Thea didn't answer right away, so George sighed. "Come on, Thea. I know something's going on, something bad-and Fred knows at least part of it. What aren't you telling me?"

"When I brought Fred back, there was a side effect." Thea paused, turning to look at George. "It poked a hole in the space-time continuum. One theory talks about time reversing itself in a sense-the laws of the universe going backwards. Fred is reverse ageing, and the dais is back, and if I'm right, it's only going to get worse."

Before George could react to that, and a folded piece of paper appeared, floating in mid-air. It had Thea's name on it.

Turning her attention from George to the paper, Thea grabbed it and opened it. "Orrin found Jax," she said softly. "He knows I was hiding in Cambridge." She handed the note to George.

"So what do we do then?" George asked.

Instead of addressing George, Thea motioned to Fred, pulling out her phone as she did. She turned the phone on (it was less likely to go haywire if it was turned off), swiped across it and hit a few buttons before handing the phone to Fred. "Go upstairs and call Ben-tell him that someone bad is coming to campus to look for me, and he needs to stay home for a few days. Tell him that I'll be in touch."

If Fred thought that was suspicious, he said nothing. He just reached for the phone. Thea started to explain to him how the phone worked, but Fred shook his head. "I've seen you do it, and you've got it already set up. One button and then I just talk into it."

Thea nodded and gave him the phone. Fred headed upstairs as Thea turned back to George. "We need to get help." And she pulled some paper and a pen out of her purse and started to write.


	14. Chapter 14: Jax

He took her to London. Hopefully, his message had gotten to Thea in time, and she was somewhere safe, but as long as he had his shadow, he couldn't go anywhere near Thea. He didn't doubt for a moment that Valentina would run off and tell Shafiq exactly where Thea was if he took her there. Instead, he went to Harry and Ron's flat. Thea needed help, and if he couldn't provide it, they could.

When he arrived, the two Aurors were sitting in their living room, along with Ginny and Hermione, their respective girlfriends. "I'm sorry to intrude," said Jax, "but we have a problem."

"We can handle it," Hermione told Harry, referring to herself and Ron. "You stay...find out what they're here about."

Harry nodded, and the pair disapparated. He turned to Jax. "Sorry, we had something come up just before you arrived." He nodded toward Valentina. "Is she safe?"

"Depends on your definition," Jax replied. "She's not going to attack us, but she'd betray us in a heartbeat."

"I didn't..."  
"Don't care," Jax interrupted her, turning to focus on Harry. "I was captured by some of Walsh's men. They know Thea's at Cambridge."

"But Thea's not at Cambridge anymore," Ginny spoke up. "That's where Ron and Hermione went...they went to help her."

Jax blinked at her. "She's not at Cambridge? Did Walsh capture her?"

Harry shook his head. "It doesn't sound like it. She used your confidential messaging to reach us. She said she found something, and she needed some help."

"So then they don't have her," Valentina spoke up.

"It doesn't sound like it," said Harry.

"They're not going to tell us where she is," said Jax before Valentina could ask anything else. "So don't even ask."

"I wasn't going to," said Valentina. "I told you, I'm not working for Shafiq."

"And I already told you that I don't believe you," Jax replied.

"Listen, when they figure out that Thea isn't at Cambridge, they're going to start looking for her again," said Harry.

"Maybe we should go back to Grimmauld Place," Ginny suggested.

"Not with her," said Jax. "We can get a hotel. The two of you can go if you feel it best." And really, if they felt that Thea and Fred would be safest there, then them, too.

"I think we need to wait to hear back from Ron and Hermione before we decide anything," Harry told them. "I want to know exactly what's going on with Thea, George, and Fred before we do anything."


	15. Chapter 15: Thea

Fred came back down into the basement and handed Thea her phone back. "He's not happy, but he said he would stay home until he hears from you-he's expecting to hear from you tomorrow at the latest though."

Thea just nodded. She was still focused on the dais.

"What are you thinking?" George asked quietly.

"I need to get scientific equipment in here, but I'm not sure how to do that without Ben finding out what's going or without the equipment being blown up," Thea told him.

George looked as if he was about to say something when they heard footsteps upstairs. The trio pulled out their wands and waited, but after a moment, Ron and Hermione appeared.

"What the bloody hell is that?" Ron asked, staring at the dais. "Didn't we destroy that?"

"Yeah, we did," said Thea. "But bringing Fred back changed things. It changed all the rules, and I think we've only just seen the effects of it. This is just the tip of the iceberg."

"Well, you're not going to have to send him back, are you?" Ron asked incredulously.

Thea didn't answer him, instead, she approached the dais, examining it more closely.

"Thea, you don't think he'll have to go back, right?"

"Ron, leave it alone," Fred told him.

"You can't be serious!?" Ron turned on his brother. "We're talking about killing you! Are you just going to stand there if she decides that you have to die?"

"Yes," said Fred. "Me coming back...it may have broken the world. If it means that everyone else gets to be okay, then yes, I die. Again."

"Look, we're not even talking about killing anyone right now," said George. "Do you really think that Thea wants to kill Fred?"

"How do you know she doesn't?" Ron demanded. "She had you use him to fool Liam."

"That's not the same thing," said George.

Thea closed her eyes. She didn't blame them for thinking it. She was thinking it too-the obvious solution was to send Fred back through the dais and hope that that would resolve everything and end the situation. But there was no guarantee that would even finish it.

She opened her eyes, listening to the others argue. "Just...stop, okay," she said softly, fighting tears. "The simplest answer is for Fred to walk right into the dais, but there's no way to know if it would even work."

"Hey, it's okay," said George, giving her arm a squeeze. "We know you're not just going to throw Fred into the dais."

"What would work?" Hermione asked.

Thea shook her head. "I don't know yet. You have to understand...we're in uncharted territory here. If Fred went into the dais, it could reverse everything, send everything back to normal, it could do nothing, or it could make things worse."

"So what's our next move?"

Thea shook her head. "I need to call Ben...get him to come down here and bring some equipment."

"Who's Ben?" Hermione asked.

"Her muggle friend," Fred filled him in.

"You want to bring a muggle into this?" Ron shook his head. "As if it's not bad enough, now you want to get a muggle involved?"

"He does have a point," said Hermione. "Do we really want a muggle involved in this?"

"He's an expert in this area," Thea explained. "I know a lot, but I don't have the background he does. I don't think I can do this on my own."

George pulled her aside. "He's already suspicious. How do you plan to explain this?"

"With the truth," Thea admitted. "And I know it's not ideal..."

"Not ideal? What about this situation do you think is ideal?" Ron demanded.

"Ron, you're not helping," Hermione told him.

"None of this is ideal," said Thea. "There's a reason why we're not supposed to mess with life and death. And this is why."

She turned and walked back upstairs, planning to go outside. George followed her, catching up to her before she made it out the door.

"We don't blame you."

"Ron does," she said softly. "And he should. You should. This is why I didn't want to bring him back, why I told you I wasn't doing you a favour. It's not a favour, because, in the end, he might have to go back. He's not supposed to be here. Do you think I want to send him back? He's been my roommate for the last three months. I don't want to send him back, but there might not be another choice."

Before she could say anything else, George pulled her to him in a tight hug. "There's going to be another way, and you'll find it. I believe in you."

"I'm sorry," came Hermione's voice from behind them, and Thea and George moved away from each other, Thea wiping tears from her eyes. "I'm sorry, but we need to know what to do from here."

Thea nodded, turning toward Hermione. "I need to call Ben." She took a breath. "And then the two of you need to go get him...escort him here."

George shook his head. "I should stay here with you. Ron can..."

It was Thea's turn to shake her head. "Ben doesn't know either Ron or Hermione-but he does know you. Really, I should be the one to go, but I can't go back to Cambridge...Orrin will be looking for me there...wait. I can go invisible." She bit her lip, considering it. She wanted to be the one to go, but she knew she needed to stay here, keep an eye on the dais. "I need to stay here. I need to keep an eye on that dais." She met George's gaze. "Please. Make sure he gets here safely."

George nodded. "I will." He turned to Hermione. "Are you ready?"

"Just let me tell Ron I'm leaving," said Hermione. She turned to Thea. "How are we going to update Harry?"

"Ron can do that," Thea told her.

Hermione nodded and headed back downstairs, leaving Thea and George alone upstairs.


	16. Chapter 16: George

They had left Ron seething, but hopefully, when he went to update Harry, Harry could talk him down where the rest of them had failed. Turning to focus on the issue at hand, George and Hermione headed up the walk to Dr. Benjamin Cooper's house.

The house was a small two-story bungalow with a small porch and a brick chimney. It was nice and normal, and George couldn't help but thinking that it was just the normal that Thea seemed to be suited for, given her affinity with the muggle world. Before he had a chance to ponder that further, Hermione was knocking on the door.

Dr. Benjamin Cooper opened the door after the first knock. "I hope you have an explanation for me because none of this makes sense. She really does work for the CIA or something, doesn't she?"

"Dr. Cooper, if we could come in, I promise we'll explain everything," said Hermione.

He nodded wearily. "Thea said that I should trust you, so, uh, yeah, come in." And he stepped aside so they could go in. They stepped into a simply furnished, modern living room with leather furniture and bookcases. Ben closed the door and gestured them toward the couch. "Please take a seat." Once they had done so, Ben continued. "Now, what is going on? What is Thea involved in?"

"Thea has some very dangerous people after her," Hermione explained.

"Does it have anything to do with the experiments she was doing in my lab?" Ben asked.

"It has everything to do with those experiments," George said quietly.

Ben shook his head. "Of course it did. What was she up to?"

"It wasn't what she was up to," said George. "Everything she did was to try to stop the bad guys from doing what they were going to do."

"But I don't understand."

Wham!

"We have to go," said Hermione, and both she and George grabbed Dr. Cooper's arms as disapparated as Orrin's thugs poured into the house.

They reappeared just outside the elite's headquarters, and Dr. Cooper gasped. "What was that? What are you?"

"Look, Thea's inside-she'll explain everything," said George. "I promise."

"She'd better."

They led him inside and down to the basement, where Thea was still examining the dais. Fred was standing by, and Ron was nowhere to be found.

"Ron go back to report to Harry?" George asked him.

"Yeah. He's still not very happy, but he went." Fred shook his head. "He's just scared."

"Thea, what's going on?" Dr. Cooper asked her, approaching the dais.

Thea turned. "Oh, thank God. Are you okay?"

"Well, I've got a lot of questions-not the least of which being how in the hell I got here."

"Magic," said Thea. "You got here through magic."


	17. Chapter 17: Thea

Ben blinked at her. "Magic?"

His mind was still looking for a scientific explanation. This wasn't going to be easy. "When I was kid, weird stuff would happen around me...I knew things, things that I couldn't have known. I even once healed a bird that my neighbour shot down. When I was eleven, a wizard by the name of Filius Flitwick showed up at my house to tell me and my parents that I was a witch and that I had been accepted to a school of magic."

"A school of magic?" Ben echoed. "And you can disappear from one place and reappear in another?"

"We can." And Thea disapparated to reappear behind Ben. "I'm over here."

Startled, Ben turned to face her. "It is magic, but there has to be a science to it-everything in this world makes sense according to laws...to physics..."

"It does," Thea assured him. "But I don't have all the answers. That's actually why I had them bring you here-I need some help figuring out the science of something that I did magically. There were...some side effects, and I need some help determining how to fix it."

Ben's thoughts were racing, but he believed her. That was one hurdle she had managed to get over. "I wouldn't even know where to begin. What do you need help fixing?"

Thea motioned Fred over. "Three months ago, the bad guys that are at Cambridge right now, they had a plan to try to bring someone very evil back to life. They used my research to do it, and I wasn't able to stop them from bringing someone back, though I was able to change who they did bring back. Fred died two years ago, in the final battle of the war started by the person they were trying to bring back. I had your friend test both Fred and George's blood because they're twins. I wanted to see if coming back had changed Fred's DNA any, and it did. He's reverse ageing, and this dais that you see here-it was destroyed three months ago, but it's back now, and it's because of what happened here."

For a moment, Ben could only stare at her. "You're gonna need to give me a minute to catch up here. How exactly did you manage to bring someone back from the dead?"

Thea glanced over at the others, but they were very decidedly silent. This was her deal as far as they were concerned, and even if they knew how to explain the how of Fred coming back, it was for her to do. So Thea told him-the entire theory, how it worked, the mix of magic and science, and when she was done, Ben was incredulous.

"How could you allow this to happen?" Ben paced away from her. "Do you realize the damage..."

"Yes, I do," Thea said softly. "I looked into it...in theory. And then the leader of this group tortured me and read my mind to figure out how to do it. Do you really think that I don't know that this was my fault? I shouldn't even have looked. If I hadn't figured out how to do it, they never could have tried to bring someone back. By then, it was too late. I couldn't reverse the spell...all I could do was change it, change who they brought back."

"I assure you that things would have been much worse had she let them bring back who they had actually intended," Hermione said quietly.

"Believe me, it's already worse," Ben said quietly.

"Well, then help me fix it," said Thea. "Please."

Ben sighed. "I'll need some equipment."

"We'll get it," said Thea.

"Well, then let's get started."


	18. Chapter 18: Jax

The wait until Ron returned was agony. Between having a traitor in their midst and not knowing if Thea was safe because of it. When Ron did return, he wasn't happy. "She wants to get a bloody muggle involved. Can you believe that?" he said to Harry the instant he returned.

Harry just blinked at him. "What?"

"Is she okay?" Jax asked, and Ron rolled his eyes.

"Yeah," said Ron. "And apparently okay with ruining our lives."

"Ron, what are you talking about?" Ginny asked.

"She's talking about sending Fred back."

Harry shook his head. "She's been talking about that from the beginning. And she'll only do it if she has to."

"She said that bringing him back...it broke the world-something about tearing the space-time continuum," Ron said miserably. "Now she's sent Hermione and George to go get this scientist friend of hers because she doesn't know what to do about it."

"Well, it doesn't sound like she's trying to send him back then," Ginny said gently. "It sounds like she's trying to find another way."

Jax couldn't really do much but watch as Ginny and Harry tried to comfort Ron. After a few minutes, he turned to check on Valentina, but she wasn't there. He cursed. "Dammit, Valentina." He headed into the next room and found her searching the room. "Not working for Shafiq, huh?"

Valentina sighed. "I was looking for the bathroom."

"Right," said Jax. "And you thought you would find it in here?" He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back out into the living room. "We need to figure out what we're going to do with her. I just caught her rooting through drawers."

"Well, it sounds like there's not really much to do," Ginny said softly. "That is until Thea and her muggle friend figure out what needs to be done."

"We can take Valentina to the ministry," said Harry. "I'm sure that the minister will have a few questions for her."

"I don't think so," said Valentina. And she disapparated.


	19. Chapter 19: Jax Again

Jax didn't do well waiting. He wanted to go see Thea now, but instead, he was trying to figure out what Valentina might have heard and whether it could lead Orrin to Thea or not. Ron had gone back to check on Thea and returned, reporting that all was fine there. And then Valentina showed up.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't stun you, tie you up, and take you straight to the ministry," said Jax, shoving her against the wall.

"Read my mind," she told him. "Read it, so you know I'm telling the truth. "I was working for Shafiq-I didn't think I had a choice, but now I think he's found your friend, and I don't want to be responsible for what he's planning to do to her."

Jax didn't hesitate. He cast the spell to read Valentina's mind and then cursed when he saw what was there. "Harry, is Thea at the old Elite headquarters?"

"Uh, yeah. She found some evidence that things had gone wrong due to bringing Fred back, and so she suspected that there would be some weird stuff there," said Harry. "Turned out she was right-the dais is back."

"Great," said Jax. "Just great. We need to get over there to help her-Orrin's heading right for them."

"I'll reach out to the Order..."

"There's no time," said Jax.

"It will only take a minute to get a message out," said Ginny. "We can get the message out and then go."

"Fine. Just hurry," said Jax.

Ginny cast her Patronus and then divided it, sending them out to find the members of the Order of the Phoenix. Then the four of them disapparated.


	20. Chapter 20: George

There wasn't much to do. Well, George was certain that wasn't true as Thea and Dr. Cooper had their heads together for hours, working on figuring out a solution to the side effects of Fred being back, but there was nothing for anyone else to do. That is until everything went to hell.

All of a sudden, the basement door burst off its hinges, and standing in the doorway was Orrin Walsh and his thugs. "Thea!" George called out to her in warning, and she sent a spell flying at the dais, blowing it up as she pulled Dr. Cooper out of the way.

Orrin sighed. "Pity. The dais is of no consequence to us now-not when we came here with Plan B. Now to you, Thea, that dais was your one chance to save yourself."

While Orrin focused on Thea, his thugs began rounding up the others, many of them beginning to duel in earnest. George found his attention divided between one of the thugs and what was happening with Thea.

"Avada Kedavra!"

"No!" George barely missed getting hit by a stun spell, but he quickly realized that Orrin hadn't been targeting Thea-the spell had been aimed for Dr. Cooper to distract Thea and allow him to disarm her. George managed to stun his opponent, but before he could get to Thea, Orrin had sent a syringe floating over towards her, stabbing her in the neck and knocking her out. With a wave of his hand, Orrin sent George flying, and within a matter of minutes, it was over, and Orrin and his thugs were victorious, leaving George and the others tied up to watch as Orrin focused on Thea.

"Set up the items," said Orrin. The items turned out to be the destroyed remains of Voldemort's Horcruxes-the ones they were able to retrieve anyway-the locket, the cup, the ring, and the diary. The locket and the ring were set at either side of Thea's head, the cup at her feet, and the diary over her chest.

"What are you doing?" George demanded, though he was in no position to demand answers in the chair he was tied to next to Fred, and to be entirely honest, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Want me to shut him up?" One of the thugs asked, but Orrin shook his head.

"No. There's nothing wrong with being curious," he said. "Besides, there's nothing he can do to stop us." He turned to George while summoning candles from a duffle bag. "The Dark Lord is coming back. She stopped us from bringing him back in body, but that doesn't mean that his soul isn't ready and waiting to come back."

"You're gonna have him possess her?!" George struggled against the ropes binding him.

"She's the only one of you that is worthy," said Orrin. "And she is, after all, the one who figured out how to bring the dead back to life. The knowledge, the power that she has...imagine what the Dark Lord can do with that? He'll be even more powerful than he was before."

"You bastard!" George began struggling even more, cursing at Orrin, who merely nodded to one of the thugs, who put some tape over his mouth.

"Keep it up, and I'll have you sedated, too," Orrin said lightly, before turning his back on George and the other prisoners and to focus on Thea. He arranged the candles around Thea and lit them and with a wave of his wand, dimmed the lights, before motioning a few of the thugs over.

They stood around Thea in a circle, and Orrin spoke, "Redi spiritu...redi spiritu...redi spiritu!"

The candles went out, leaving them all in the dark.


	21. Chapter 21: Thea

Everything had gone dark. Everything had gone dark, but not before she watched Orrin murder her friend. Thea sat up, finding that she wasn't in the Elite's headquarters anymore...and she wasn't alone. Standing on the other side of the white room that she found herself in was Voldemort.

They had no wands, and for a moment, Thea couldn't figure out why that was-then she understood. She understood all of it.

"I see you really are as smart as he said you are," Voldemort told her, though he made no moves toward her.

Thea pulled herself up to her feet. She felt vulnerable sitting, even knowing that he couldn't really hurt her.

"You know what's going to happen, don't you?" said Voldemort, appearing ill at ease with her calm.

"I know what you think and what Orrin thinks is going to happen," said Thea. "The problem is, that neither of you learned from your past mistakes."

"I've made no mistakes!"

"Well, you're dead, aren't you? I'd say that's a pretty big mistake, but that's not the one I'm talking about," Thea told him. "You tried to possess Harry Potter at one point, but you couldn't hold him. You couldn't hold him, because his godfather had just been killed, because what he was feeling was too much for you."

Voldemort shook his head. "Harry Potter is of no consequence right now. I will deal with him later."

It was Thea's turn to shake her head. "No, you won't. Orrin didn't tell you about his history with me, has he? He had my parents killed...he killed my best friend's parents, who had taken me in after my parents died. He threatened everyone close to me, and just before he sedated me, he killed a friend of mine. You can't feel it yet, because of the sedation, but you will. And when you do, I'll be free."

"You're bluffing."

"Am I?" She wasn't. She was only staying calm because what she knew, it gave her something to hold onto. She sat back down. "I guess there's nothing else to do but to wait and see."

It didn't take long for the sedation to wear off, and the numbness, the steady calm Thea had been feeling was beginning to waver. Grief was making its way into her belly and seeping into her system through her pores. Thea didn't fight it, but rather, she embraced it, allowed herself to feel the depths of the pain. She looked up. Voldemort was sweating.

"Not doing so well, are you?" said Thea. Voldemort's form began to fade away, and Thea felt herself beginning to wake up.

Thea opened her eyes.

"Ah, he's awake," said Orrin, as Thea's eyes were focusing to the scene before her. She searched for her wand, spotting it about a foot away, and she reached for it. It leapt into her hand, and in a flash, she had disarmed Orrin.

"Sorry, Orrin, but your little experiment didn't work," Thea told him. "It's still me." She spotted his thugs coming at her out of the corner of her eye and sent them flying with a flick of her wand, before turning back to Orrin. "Do you remember that Voldemort tried to possess Harry Potter during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries? But he couldn't because Harry had just witnessed the murder of his godfather. Voldemort couldn't withstand the pain, so he had to leave Harry. I'm guessing that you didn't remember, didn't know, or didn't think it important, otherwise you never would have killed my friend in front of me. You were in such a hurry to get the muggle out of the way, to use him as a distraction to disarm me that you didn't realize that doing so would mean that your plan had no hope of succeeding."

She spotted the thugs again from out of the corner of her eye and sent them flying again, just as the door to the upstairs burst open. Behind it, stood Jax, Ginny, Harry, and another witch that Thea didn't know. The thugs began disapparating, one of them grabbing Orrin on his way out, but not stopping for Orrin's wand.

Thea sank down into an empty chair with a jagged sigh while Jax and the others untied everyone.

As soon as George was untied, he went over to her, pulling her into his arms. "It's okay," he told her. "It's over."

"No, it's not," said Thea. She held onto him but didn't allow herself to fully break. There was still too much to do-between Orrin being out there and still actively trying to bring Voldemort back and the side effects from having brought Fred back...there was a lot to figure out, and with Ben having been killed...Thea shuddered, and George tightened his grip on her.

"I take it that his plan didn't work then," Jax said quietly.

"No," said George. "He miscalculated."

"Why don't you take Thea back to Grimmauld Place?" Harry said quietly. "The Order is on the way, and we'll make sure this place is guarded. We'll take care of the body, too."

Thea pulled back, shaking her head. "I need to figure out how to fix this."

"It will all still be here tomorrow." This time it was Fred who spoke up. "You can't do everything."

"We'll come back first thing in the morning. I promise," George told her.

Finally, Thea nodded.

"Maybe you should go with them," Harry said to Fred. Fred was technically a target too, so he was wary about him being out in the open.

Fred nodded, and together, the three of them disapparated, reappearing on the step outside Grimmauld Place, leaving the others to handle things for the night.


	22. Chapter 22: George

Gently, George knocked on the door to the bedroom where Thea stayed whenever she was at Grimmauld Place. When she came to the door, her hair dripping wet, wearing the tee-shirt he had lent her, and looking paler than he had seen her in a long time, he wanted to pull her to him, but he didn't. Somehow it felt different under the circumstances, with her wearing so few clothes and with this being her bedroom. "Um, Fred made dinner," he said, holding up a plate with grilled cheese sandwiches on it.

"Thank you," Thea said softly.

"I'll just leave them here for you," said George, setting them on the dresser and turning to go.

"Don't go."

George turned back to face her.

"I don't want to be alone," she admitted.

Then George did go to her, pull her to him. "I'm sorry about your friend."

Thea did break down then, crying on his shoulder. "It was my fault he was even involved."  
"No," said George. "You did what you had to do."

Thea pulled back from him, shaking her head. "It's my fault the world is broken. If I had just..."

George gripped her arms. "You brought Fred back to us-even if it was just for a little while. That's worth all of this."

"But what if it's not?"

Before George could respond to that, there was a knock at the door. George turned to see Fred standing there.

"I just thought you would want to know that the others are here," he said softly.

George nodded. "Thanks." He took one last glance at Thea, before following Fred out into the hall.

"Maybe go a little bit easy on her," said Fred.

George stopped, frowning in surprise and honestly, a little in insult. "Excuse me?"

"Look, this is hard for her," Fred explained. "We had a conversation about it at Cambridge. As a scientist, she has to look out for the world, and what she did, by figuring out how to bring someone back and bringing me back instead of just stopping Orrin in the first place...there are consequences, and that weighs on her. But she knows what the cost is if she has to send me back, and that's not just the costs to you, or even that she could lose you by sending me back-it will cost her, personally, to have to send me back. I think she's hoping to find another way because the idea of sending me back to the world of the dead is a lot for her. Look, I'm fine with going back. I mean, I hope I don't have to-I kind of like being alive, but really, I've already had more time than I was supposed to have. Technically, I'm not supposed to be here, and I get that, and you need to get that, too, because if she has to send me back-she's going to need you, and I think, you'll need her, too."

For a moment, George didn't know what to say to that. When he didn't respond, Fred continued. "It may come across that all of this is easy for her, but it's not. It's at least as hard on her as it is on you because she feels that conflict between the science and between she what she wants to do."

George was quiet again for another moment. "Can you..."

"Yeah. I'll deal with them," said Fred.

And with that, both brothers turned in opposite directions-Fred to go talk to the others, and George to go back to Thea.


	23. Chapter 23: Thea

Thea hadn't moved from where she had been standing when George left the room, so when he came back, she immediately opened the door at his knock. He pulled her into his arms. "I'm sorry. I was thinking about losing my brother-I wasn't thinking about how hard this is on you."

"I know," Thea said softly, hugging him back, before leaning in to gently kiss him on the lips.

George pulled back briefly to meet her gaze, before leaning in to kiss her more deeply. Her lips met his, deepening the kiss further. It wasn't until they were moving toward the bed that she pulled back. "I'm sorry."

George shook his head. "Don't be."

There was a knock on the door.

"Sorry," said Jax. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

"I'll see you downstairs?" George asked hopefully.

Thea nodded, before turning to focus on Jax, very aware of George leaving. "I'm as okay as I can be under the circumstances."

"I'm sorry about your friend," Jax said awkwardly, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Thea nodded, though she was getting a little tired of hearing it. She didn't say anything though, wasn't entirely sure as to what to say. It was a little awkward because she knew that Jax knew he had interrupted her and George. Relationships were sort of new territory, because aside from Liam, Thea hadn't really been involved with that many guys, and Jax's relationships had tended to be short-lived.

"Look, I don't want this to be weird," Thea finally blurted out. "You knew that we were interested in each other the last time we saw each other."

"Yeah, but you were at Cambridge, and he's been here in London," said Jax.

"You know, there are such things as owls-just because you don't use them doesn't mean that other people don't," Thea pointed out.

"Haha," said Jax. And just like that, they were back in sync. "So how are you doing?"

"Well, I just witnessed a friend of mine being killed, narrowly missed being possessed, and single-handedly may have destroyed the world," said Thea. "I'm great."

"It wasn't single-handedly," Jax pointed out. "You know, Orrin did play a part in this whole mess."

"Yes, but I'm the one who couldn't resist figuring it out," Thea said quietly. "If I had just focused on keeping him from tracking me and then on escaping we could have avoided this whole mess."

"You can't keep blaming yourself for that," Jax matched her tone. "Look, if you need to be by yourself to deal with this-or by yourself with George," his tone was teasing now, "then I'll leave you be, but everyone is getting some sandwiches together and planning to play cards or something downstairs-I think it's a source of comfort for everyone, and it could be for you, too. I bet Hermione even has some clothes you can borrow."

Thea nodded, offering a small smile. "All right."

"I'll send Hermione up to you," said Jax, before heading out.


	24. Chapter 24: George

Dinner was a lighter affair than George might have expected under the circumstances. While there was a sort of a dark cloud over everything, it seemed to stay far more to the background. Even Thea seemed to be getting along with everyone and joining in, which was distinctly different than from the last time they had all been there together. The only one who didn't seem to be happy under the circumstances was Ron.

George went over to him. "What's the matter?" He followed his brother's gaze over to Thea and Fred who were sitting together talking. George sighed.

"How can he just be talking to her like nothing's wrong? Like she's not going to send him back?" Ron asked.

"Because he doesn't look at it that way," George said quietly. "She gave him a second chance that he wasn't supposed to have-and she's going to try to make sure it sticks. But if it comes down to her choosing between the world and him...she wouldn't really have a choice."

"How can you just be at ease with it, too?" Ron asked.

"I'm not," George admitted. "But neither is she."

Ron didn't have anything to say to that.

"Look, you're making her out to be the bad guy, but she's not," George told him. "Rookwood is the bad guy. Rookwood and Orrin Walsh and the rest of the Elite. They're the bad guys. If you want to be angry about the situation-be angry with them. Thea's trying to help."

Ron looked over at her, before sighing. "Fine. But I'm only giving in because we all know you have a thing for her."

George chuckled, but let that go as Ron headed over to Thea and Fred. George gave him a few minutes before joining them. For once, things were good.


	25. Chapter 25: Jax

Later that evening, Jax made his way back over to Thea. "How are you doing?" he asked.

Thea nodded. "Being here, with everyone, it helps."

For a moment, Jax didn't say anything to that. Her statement, on the surface, didn't seem to be true. He tried to reach into her mind, though he expected her to be blocking him. She wasn't. He blinked at her, realizing that she had told the absolute truth, as strange as it was.

"It's never going to be okay what they did to Ben...and I have the fate of the world-and Fred-to worry about, but those worries will be there tomorrow," Thea said softly.

"You feel like you belong with them," he said.

"I do," said Thea. "I know I haven't been much of a joiner before-I wasn't really all that interested in spending time with groups, and I didn't really trust people. Initially, I was just shy, and then after Liam and Orrin and everything that happened with my parents, I was too afraid to trust anyone, but that's changed. These people...I trust them, and that makes a lot of difference." Thea was quiet for a moment. "Speaking of trust...what's the story with Valentina?"

"Speaking of trust?" Jax shaking his head. "There is no story. Orrin sent his goons after her and tried to use her to find out where you were from me, but she ended up betraying them to help."

Thea raised an eyebrow. "No story, huh?" Since he had read her mind just a few minutes before, she reached into his mind to confirm her suspicions. "You like her."

Jax shook his head. "I don't like her, and don't read my mind."

"Hey, fair is fair," Thea pointed out. "And you do like her. You just don't fully trust her. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," said Jax. "And I'm sorry about earlier. I'm glad that George seems to be making you happy."

"You're just used of being protective," Thea said simply. "We've spent a lot of time protecting each other and a lot of time where it was just the two of us. And there were reasons for that. Your my best friend-you're my family, and that's never going to change...even if everything else does."

"I know," said Jax. "But it's nice to hear it."


	26. Chapter 26: Thea

Thea slept fitfully that night, having weird dreams about sending Fred back through the veil and one particularly frightful one where she had had to kill him outright. After that, Thea had had a hard time going back to sleep. As a result, she was one of the first ones up the next morning, though she needed coffee to help finish waking her up and helping her to be alert enough to figure things out today.

Soon the kitchen was bustling with activity, and before long, Thea, along with a group of Order of the Phoenix members, including George and Jax, were heading back to the old Elite Headquarters. Thea didn't complain about the escort-she was rather grateful for it, considering the circumstances.

Thea was quiet as they arrived-there wasn't really much to say-and she immediately got to work. The problem was, she wasn't liking the answers she was getting. Thea turned to give the others the bad news when the door burst open. The witch and wizard who had been guarding outside were held at wand point, and in walked Orrin Walsh.

Before George or Jax could hit him with a stun spell, however, he had disapparated to appear next to Thea, had grabbed her arm and disapparated again. His thugs followed suit-they had gotten what they came for.

They reappeared in another basement and with a flick of Orrin's wand, he had taken Thea's wand before disapparating. Thea looked around. The room was spartan-a mattress on the floor and a small bathroom, but little else. It didn't appear that they wanted to use her to bring Voldemort back any longer-it was more that they just wanted her out of the way.


	27. Chapter 27: Jax

No one really knew what to do at first, before finally, one of the wizards disapparated back to Grimmauld Place to get Harry. A few moments later, the wizard returned with both Harry and Valentina.

"Are you okay?" Valentina asked Jax.

"Fantastic," he said, rolling his eyes at her.

Valentina sighed. "I'm sorry I betrayed you, but I had nothing to do with them taking Thea now."

Jax shook his head. "That's what you think this is about?"

"Isn't it?"

It was Jax's turn to sigh. "I don't trust you."

"Fair enough," said Valentina. "But I did work with them. Maybe I can help."

"How?"

Valentina bit her lip. "Well, I did work with them-I might be able to help you figure out what they're up to...and maybe even where they took her."

Jax froze and considered. "Do you know why they took her?"

Valentina shrugged. "Well, she's stopped them twice now, right? My guess is that they wanted her out of the way, so she can't stop them again."

"So why not just kill her?" Jax said, giving voice to his fear. "Why kidnap her?"

Valentina was quiet for a moment. "There are only two reasons not to kill her-either they need her for something...or they don't think they can kill her. Considering that they got her wand away from her, my guess is that they need her."

Even as she said it, an owl fluttered into the room, with a note tied to his ankle, addressed to Harry Potter. Harry took the letter and opened it.

"What does it say?" George asked.

"Orrin wants to make a trade-the dais for Thea," said Harry.

"But we don't have the dais," one of the other wizards said.

"No, but we will," George said quietly. "As long as Fred is here, the dais will keep coming back."

"Well, we can't give him the dais," said Jax. "He'll just use it to bring Voldemort back."

"Ask for proof of life," Valentina said quietly.

Jax looked over at her. "I thought you said he needed her, so she would be alive?"

Valentina shook her head. "It's a way to stall. You demand they give you proof of life, and then you can talk about the dais."

Harry scribbled down a response-telling Orrin that he couldn't negotiate with him without proof of life and attached it to owl's leg, sending it flying out the window, before he turned to the other wizard. "Go back to Grimmauld Place and send Ron and Hermione here." And then all there was to do was to wait.


	28. Chapter 28: Thea

Thea was sitting on the edge of the mattress when Orrin returned. He tossed a bit of parchment at her. "What's this?" she asked, though it was answered as soon as she opened the parchment. "They don't have a dais," she said, tossing the parchment back at him. "Not yet, anyway."

"Not yet?"

Thea stood. "Take me back there, and I'll explain."

"You'll explain now."

Thea nodded. "All right. Well, when you reversed the dais, you poked a hole in the fabric of reality. As a result, the laws of science aren't working the way they did before. The dais came back on its own, and it will come back again. And if you were to try to bring Voldemort back, you would rip things even further, possibly ending the world."

"Why are you telling me this?" Orrin wasn't stupid after all.

Thea shrugged. "You're not stupid. You won't do anything to deliberately destroy the world."

"And how do I know that you're even telling me the truth?" Orrin closed the distance between the two. "You could be making this up to keep me from bringing the Dark Lord back."

"We have bigger problems, and you just killed the one person who could fix it," Thea told him. "So read my mind. Tell me if I'm lying."

It was one of the hardest things she had ever done-allowing access to her mind, but not unlimited access. She had to convince him that she had told him the truth-and the whole truth, not just the small part of the truth she had actually told him.

After a moment, Orrin stepped back, considering her thoughts...her words, both which, as it seemed, had matched up. "So then they'll give me the dais?"

"If I tell them to," said Thea. "But what good would it do you?"

"Never you mind that," said Orrin. "Come on. You and I will go. They'll have their proof of life, and I'll have the dais." He took her arm and disapparated, reappearing at the old Elite headquarters, where he led her inside, pointing his wand at her neck. "Proof of life," he told everyone as he guided Thea down the stairs toward the newly appeared dais. "Now I'll be reclaiming my dais."

Everyone's wands were out, though they couldn't do much as long as Orrin's wand was pointed at Thea's neck. "Let him," said Thea. "He can't do anything with the dais-he's not stupid enough to knowingly destroy the world. Trust me."

Some wands lowered, though none were put away. Everyone was watching Orrin closely, not trusting him-though they did trust Thea. Orrin moved closer to the dais to inspect it when Thea moved to try to get out of his grasp.

"I don't think so!" Orrin manoeuvred to hold onto Thea more tightly.

The curtain on the dais began to move.

"What the hell is that?"

Thea shook her head. "I don't know."

"You're lying!" Orrin screamed at her.

"You read my mind-you know I wasn't."

"That just means you're a more skilled occlumens than I thought," he told her.

They started to be drawn toward the dais as if magnets to metal.

"No!" George yelled, running toward them.

The pulling got stronger and Orrin's grip on Thea tighter as George gripped her hand as well.

"No! If I'm going down I'm taking you with me!" Orrin shouted.

"Not if I can help it!" George pulled Thea toward him as Orrin fell into the dais. Both George and Thea fell to the floor as the dais vanished. "Are you all right?" George asked her.

"Yeah, I think so," she said as he pulled her into a tight hug.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron asked.

Thea pulled back to look at him. "We screwed something up by bringing someone back from the dead. The dais came back because it was waiting for Fred to go back through." She took a breath. "So this morning, I asked Fred for his hairbrush, and after Orrin kidnapped me, I stuck some of the hairs into his pocket. When he went over to the dais, it sensed him, I guess-and you saw what happened."

"So does that mean that Fred gets to stay?" Ron asked.

"I have to run some tests to be sure," Thea told him. "But yeah, I think he gets to stay."


	29. Chapter 29: George

Over the next couple of weeks, there was much to be done-and most of it seemed to be on Thea. First and foremost, she had felt the need to notify Dr. Cooper's family and the University of Cambridge of his passing. George had gone with her for those notifications, feeling that at the very least, she shouldn't be alone.

And then there was determining if she had actually fixed the issue with the tear in the space-time continuum. For that, they had gone back to see Dr. Graham-also having to, unfortunately, notify her of Dr. Cooper's death-and the test results found that Fred's reverse ageing had stopped, and he had caught up to George-minus the two years he had been dead.

As before, the three went out to eat, this time to celebrate, though as before, Thea was still quiet. "You did what you had to do," he said quietly to her while Fred was ordering. "You shouldn't feel guilty about that."

"I know," Thea said softly. "But I still made a decision that directly caused the death of another person-two people in fact. And I need to come to terms with that."

"It is not your fault that Dr. Cooper was killed."

"Not directly," said Thea, "and I know that he had to be brought in. We were dealing with something that was just slightly over my head, but that doesn't change the fact that if I hadn't brought him in, he would still be alive. That's something else I have to come to terms with."

George put an arm around her and gave her a squeeze. "And I'm here for you every step of the way." He removed his arm to take a sip of water. The waitress had gone, and Fred was pretending that his cup was the most interesting thing in the world-he knew what George had wanted to talk to Thea about and was trying to give them a little space. George, however, needed a moment to figure out exactly how to ask.

"So now that we know that Fred can stay," George began. "We're going to take him home. I'd like it if you would come with us...and maybe I could introduce you to my parents as my girlfriend?"

Thea took a sip of her water to buy her a moment-and to hide her surprise. For a legilimens, she was surprised by him a little too often-perhaps it was an indication of how preoccupied she had been. She set down her glass. "That's what you want? For us to be a couple?"

"Of course it's what I want," George told her. "I would have asked you sooner, but we spent the last three months sending owls back and forth while you tried to determine if my brother could stay alive or would have to go back to the world of the dead. The more I get to know you, the more I care about you, and I don't want that to stop."

"The Elite is still out there," said Thea.

And she was right. They may have stopped Orrin, but there were still others out there, but what was left, that had nothing to do with him or Thea. He shrugged. "They're Harry and Ron's problem now," he told her. "Orrin was the major threat, and now he's gone, so don't use them as an excuse."

Thea nodded. "Okay."

"Okay?" George asked.

"Yes, I will be your girlfriend," said Thea, "and I will go with you to meet your parents-under one condition: I don't want you to tell them that I was the one to bring Fred back. If we're going to do this-I want to do this right. They should get to know me for who I am, not the fact that I brought their son back to life."

George nodded. "Fair enough."


	30. Chapter 30: Jax

"So I guess this is it," said Valentina.

"Yeah," said Jax, awkwardly. Jax was going back to Africa in a few days, and Valentina was going undercover to help flush out the rest of the Elite. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked her.

Valentina nodded. "I am. Part of this mess is my fault, and I want to help to fix it. Besides, they're bringing my father here and putting him under guard. I kind of can't back out now."

Jax nodded, but before he could say anything else, Thea had steered him away. "You can't really tell me that you're going back to Africa right now."

Jax shook his head. "You don't need me here right now. Aren't you going with George to meet his parents tomorrow?"

"Yes, but who says that I don't need you?" said Thea. "You'll always be my family, no matter what happens, but I wasn't saying it because of me. I know you're interested in Valentina, and if you leave now, you won't have a chance to get to know her-find out if you can trust her."

Jax shrugged. "She's telling the truth right now."

"There, see? Plus, it would be nice to have you here in England for an extended period of time. I know you like to travel and search for treasure, but I do miss you when you're gone."

Jax sighed. "Fine. I'll talk to Harry to see if he can use me in his investigation into the rest of the Elite."

Thea gave him a hug. "Thank you."

"Uh, huh. I never really could deny you much, could I?"

"I don't ask for much usually," Thea pointed out.

"You don't," Jax agreed, before heading back over to Valentina. "It looks like I'm going to be sticking around for a bit. While I'm here, I might as well see if I can be useful in this investigation."

"So we might be working together then?" Valentina asked with a smile.

"We might."

"Well, I look forward to it," Valentina told him. "I look forward to it."


	31. Bonus Chapter 1: Valentina

Valentina didn't want to betray Jax. She hated Shafiq and everything that he stood for, but the wizard had caught up to her after he had captured Jax. He had said that they would let her go-both her and her father-if she helped them to find Thea. Apparently, she hadn't been where Jax thought she was, so Shafiq had sent her to rescue Jax and to figure out where Thea really was. Unfortunately, Jax was onto her, so he wasn't going to tell say anything-or allow anyone else to say anything-in front of her.

She had picked up on some clues, however, and when she explained what she had heard, one of the men there with Shafiq-an Orrin Walsh-said that he knew exactly where Thea was, and he and Shafiq, along with a few of the thugs headed out, leaving two behind to watch her until they could be sure that Thea was where they said she was. Valentina, however, had other ideas.

They hadn't removed her wand, which was a big mistake. Before they could think to respond, Valentina had stunned them both and disapparated. She needed to make this right.


	32. Bonus Chapter 2: Orrin

Orrin paced around the house where they were staying. While the Order of the Phoenix had been eating dinner and relaxing, he had been pacing furiously. He had stolen the wand of one of his followers and had cursed anyone who got into his way, sending curses at items to get out his temper. "How is it that we failed?" He demanded. "How is it that I didn't know about the Dark Lord failing to possess Harry Potter during the second wizarding war?"

Finally, he had a solution-or, well, not a solution, but a direction to begin moving in. "Get me everything you've got on the second wizarding war. I want to know how to defeat the confounded Order of the Phoenix that she is hiding behind." She was Thea, who had thwarted him too many times already. They needed to bring the Dark Lord back, and if they were going to do that, they needed to get rid of Thea once and for all.


	33. Token of the Elite: Chapter 1

Thea hesitated on the walk up to the Burrow. It was a big step, meeting George's parents, and after everything, it felt weird to be doing something as normal as this. After a second, George noticed and went back to her. Fred waited but didn't approach.

"Thea, don't worry. They're going to love you." George took her hand.

"Would you believe I'm more nervous about this than if I had to face Orrin again?" Thea smiled weakly.

George shifted to put an arm around her, pulling her closer. "Considering how much you've isolated yourself for the last eight years, no, I'm not surprised. But you already know almost half my family-Fred, Ginny, and Ron love you, and my parents will, too. Percy might not, but then Percy's mostly a git anyway." He said it lightly, in hopes of making her laugh. It worked.

A laugh bubbled up despite her best efforts. "That's an awful thing to say about your brother."

"It's true though-just ask Fred," said George. "Now, come on."

Thea let George lead her up to the door. Before he could open it though, Fred stopped him. "Maybe I should wait here," he said. "Once they see me, Mum and Dad aren't going to even notice Thea. Introduce her, and then I'll come in in a few minutes." It was true-a son having come back from the dead trumped meeting another son's girlfriend.

"I don't mind being in the background," Thea told them, but George shook his head.

"She's the one who brought you back. They'll notice her." George moved to open the door, but this time, Thea stopped him.

"I'd rather we not tell them that part."

George blinked at her. "Why not?"

Thea took his other hand in hers. "Because I want them to accept me as your girlfriend, not because I brought Fred back."

For a moment, George just looked at the two of them. "This is what you both want?"

When they nodded, George opened the door. "Mum, Dad!"

After a moment, Molly appeared. "George! How good to see you!" She gave him a hug before stepping back to take in who he had brought with him. "And I'm guessing that this is Thea?"

"It is," said George. "Thea, this is my mother Molly."

"Well, it's very nice to meet you, Thea," said Molly, giving her a hug.

"It's nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Weasley," said Thea.

"Good morning, George," said a red-haired man, whom Thea presumed to be George's father as he came into the room.

After the two hugged, George drew his father's attention to Thea. "This is Thea. Thea, my dad, Arthur."

"Well, Thea, it's very nice to meet you." He didn't hug her as George's mother had, but his smile was welcoming.

"Come on then," said George's mother. "I'll put on a pot of tea, and we can get to know each other."

"Um, before we do that," said George. "There's someone else that came here with us." He headed over to the doorway to gesture Fred inside. When Fred did so, for a moment, Molly and Arthur could only stare. Their shock was overwhelming and nearly had Thea staggering. George gripped her arm to steady her.

"Thanks," Thea said softly.

"But how?" Molly asked, her face pale.

George looked over at Thea, and she knew that he wanted to tell them the truth-all of it, that Thea had been responsible for bringing him back. She shook her head. He nodded and turned back to them. "Over the last couple of months, I've been helping Harry and Ron try to stop a group called the Elite from bringing You Know Who back. They made an attempt, and one of the people working on the case with us, she wasn't able to stop them, but she was able to change who they brought back, and she brought back Fred."

"But why Fred?" Arthur asked, clearly confused why some witch they had never met would bring their son back from the dead. Thea couldn't exactly blame them.

George shook his head. "She told me that he was the first person she could think of."

That was enough for them. The pair of them wrapped their arms around their son, Molly crying, and Arthur didn't appear to be too far away from it.

Finally, once they had stepped back and let Fred go, Molly turned to Thea. "Why don't you come help me with the tea, dear? Then we can all catch up."

Thea nodded, following Molly into the kitchen. Molly waved her wand and the tea leaves went into the pot along with water and then biscuits floated onto a serving plate. "I'm sorry, but I'm not very adept at magical cooking," Thea told her.

"That's all right, dear," said Molly, who with a few more waves of her wand finished getting everything together and on one serving tray. "I just wanted to have a word. When you came into George's life, you changed it for the better-he's struggled so much since Fred had died. Well, of course, now he's back, although he was starting to come around, I think when you came into the picture. I don't know you yet, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to like you because you brought him back to us."

"I..." Thea was about to say that she hadn't, but that's when she realized that Molly wasn't talking about Fred. She was talking about George. She was telling her that meeting her had led to George being able to heal some from having lost his brother and for him to be able to be more himself again.

Thea was quiet for a moment. "We both went undercover together briefly. During that time...we had a few conversations-one of them about Fred, and the other about my parents, who were killed awhile back. He helped me to heal, too."

Molly squeezed her shoulder. "Well, then I'm glad you both found each other." And they headed back into the living room for tea and biscuits with Arthur, George, and Fred.


End file.
